It isn’t often that I purchase a copy of the Jersey Evening Post, but on the rare instance where I do it’s usually for something that’s grabbed my eye on the front page. In the case of yesterday, I bought a copy of the JEP purely for the headline ‘Men in suits who steal from M&S’.

‘Ha!’ I thought, and in an impulse move whilst buying myself a small cherryade I bought a copy. However, as is usually the norm, I was left disappointed by the short length and lack of insight of the article; the gist being:

–          Old people and affluent men in suits are stealing their lunch from M&S.

–          It’s ‘surprising’ to Nick Steel, managing director of M&S.

–          No-one knows why affluent men in suits are stealing from M&S.

And that’s it really.

I suppose it’s a little much to ask of the JEP to provide us with any type of analysis of the situation. ‘The recession’ (the media’s catch-all-term du jour) is alluded to as a possible influence which is a fine excuse for the elderly, but the well-off high-rollers in their silk ties? Hmmm…

While it’s admittedly hard to draw a definitive set of conclusions as to why power-suited businessmen are feeling the need to steal goods from M&S, it sure as hell won’t stop me from turning my measured, completely unbiased eye to it.

Here are my thoughts:  anyone who has, or even attempted to buy food from M&S at lunchtime will know of the queues that befall you when you enter. Nasty aren’t they? Horrid, hungry, quintessentially English queues that seem insurmountable to those who witness them from afar – clutching your California rolls and Miso soups, sad and afraid of the time it might take to pay for them.

Right, so imagine that, ok, and then pity the poor businessman (no really!); he’s only nipped out to get himself a farmhouse/BLT/prawn three-pack sandwich and some hand-cut balsamic vinegar crisps.

That’s all he wants.

He toys with the idea of getting himself a vanilla bean and maple syrup smoothie, but then he takes stock of the queue: It’s long; at least twenty, maybe thirty people deep.

‘Ten minutes’ he estimates in his head ‘or at least seven’.

Beads of corporate sweat begin to grow on his forehead; he’s already been away from his desk for five minutes! He begins to imagine the emails accumulating on his PC screen – first ‘Urgent – sales’ and then, moments later ‘RE: Urgent – sales’ from an impatient man his exact reflection in every way. Then – almost exactly like Spiderman – his senses tingle; a sense which he has taken to mean that his phone is ringing, now maybe for the second time since he’s left the building. He forgets about the vanilla bean and maple syrup smoothie and starts to stroll back casually round the sandwich fridge as a man with sweat on his brow and a face white and stricken with fear can. He starts considering the previously unthinkable; ‘I can leave without paying for these, I’m sure I can’. Briefly he ponders the consequences ‘what if someone sees me steal?’ But then, and rightly, he weighs it up against the possibility of someone seeing him queue.

QUEUE.

The thought! Most of his equals probably have an entire workforce they rota to go out and get the lunch so no-one has to leave (what genius; what progress!). What would it say about him if he were caught… queuing? Would he ever be able to live it down? Imagine the talk at the  Company’s Christmas (insert-vague-affiliation-with-a-charity-to-seem-human) Ball! ‘Oi! GARY! You can get the next round if you want – I mean, you like to QUEUE, don’t you?! HARHARHARHAR!!”.

Shit.

His minds made up – he holds his breath and begins to walk out, exhaling only to whistle a tune that didn’t exist until it’s left his lips. He’s nearly in the clear – past the charity stand, past the women’s blouses… and… He’s out! Praises above! Back he dashes to unlock his screen and listen to his voicemail simultaneously, his emails only a few keystrokes away! The world can continue to turn a day longer.

So yeah; have a heart right? Sure he’s stolen something, and that’s wrong, right? But neither you nor I can even begin to understand how important it is he returns back to that desk ‘ASAP’. Stocks could fall couldn’t they? Profit-margins could be lost and far-off worlds could collide – the lives of so many rests on every key-press on his eight-year old Dell, Company-issue laptop. I mean, technically speaking these men should have their own queue, shouldn’t they? I’m serious – a queue for them: the world-changers, power-movers and body-shakers; and a queue for the rest of us cretins. We really don’t appreciate what they do enough – mainly because our tiny, lower-paid, insignificant minds couldn’t understand it anyway! They shouldn’t really have to buy their lunch at all! There should be some sort of allowance – subsidised by all of us via a lower-level tax-increase – that provides stores like M&S with enough headroom to allow these men and women to walk straight out with their lunch; no questions asked. The normal laws cannot apply to them; they’re too important to serve a term in La Moye; their time is too valuable to be spent giving police statements and paying small fines! Let them steal! Pay for their lunch! Let them have your hard-earned money to subsidise their important lives!

This is, after all, how these massive cunts see it anyway.